Peking Temples as the Congregational Center and Their Fate (original) (raw)
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The Chinese City in Space and Time: The Development of Urban Form in Suzhou
The American Historical Review, 2001
ofEdinburgh from 1990 to 1993 was made financially possible by the Edinburgh University Postgraduate Studentship, ORS Award Scheme, and Edward Boyle Scholarship. During the academic year 1993-1994, I was aided by an award from the Henry Lester Memorial Trust; and in 1995 I was supported by the Michael Ventris Memorial Trust at the Architectural Association for the completion of a self-contained piece ofwork that is closely related to a particular chapter ofthis book. My special debt is to Professor Ronald G. Knapp, who not only commented on my dissertation but also thoughtfully recommended it to the University of Hawai'i Press for publication. I am also very grateful for the helpful comments and criticisms from the two manuscript reviewers, Professors Frederick W. Mote and Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt, who kindly revealed their identities to me. I was able to incorporate most oftheir suggestions into the amended and corrected version. During the revision ofthe work, I continued to profit from their expertise. Nor would my acknowledgments ever be complete without mention of my gratitude to my editor at the press, Patricia Crosby, for her suggestions, support, and patience, and to my copyeditor Robyn Sweesy, for her commitment to the improvement in the style and presentation of the manuscript. All the comments I received have carefully been considered; what errors remain are mine. Finally, I thank my wife, Jing; my parents, and my sister for their love, goodwill, and confidence in my academic endeavor. Jing has shown extraordinary fortitude and stamina in supporting our life in Edinburgh. Xl Interestingly, no Chinese city in the imperial era was ever a corporate entity ofits own; nor did any of them have the organizational features that set European cities apart in Background of the Beginning ofthe City Tradition holds that the city of Suzhou was originally built in 514 B.C. as the capital of the state ofWu. 1 It was then called Hehi Dacheng (the Great City ofHelii). In the first half of the Eastern Zhou (770-256 B.C.), known as the Spring and Autumn period (770-476 B.C.), WU occupied a territory spreading out from the Yangzi delta and gradually extended in almost all directions except for the eastern seaward one (see Figure 1.2). From a strategic point ofview, this central area in which the city was built had the B OASTING A HISTORY OF OVER TWO AND A HALF millennia, Suzhou is situated at the center of the Yangzi delta, in the southeast of present-dayJiangsu province. As Figure 1.1 shows, the River Yangzi flows eastward over sixty kilometers to the north. About twenty kilometers to the southwest lies Lake Tai, the great drainage basin of the Southeast region, out of which flow innumerable streams north to the Yangzi or east to the sea. The region around Lake Tai has~e_en the richest rice-growing bottom landin all ofChina; it is also a region ofgreat .scenic beauty, with mountains and hills and thousands of islands. It provided water routes connecting to all the important cities of the Southeast as well as to the Grand Canal and Yangzi arteries. As background information for our discussion of the contructionand transformati~nofthe city, the first part of this chapter introduces the general geographic, cultural, and political conditions under which the city was believed to have been built for the first time in 514 B.C. This is followed by a brief description of the development of Suzhou in the imperial era, primarily from the ninth century to the turn of the twentieth century. Historical and Cultural Background CHAPTER 1 9 12 / THE CHINESE CITY IN SPACE AND TIME
The Notion of Urban Culture in the High Qing : Itinerary andTopics in Yangzhou huafang lu
Urban Life in China (15th-20th centuries). Communitiers, Institutions, Representations, , 2015
Yangzhou huafang lu (The Pleasure Boats of Yangzhou) by Li Dou, published in 1795, depicts that city´s multifaceted cultural life during the years of abundance and glory. The book´s text develops along a route which followed many architectural sites, notably gardens visited by urban elites, down to markets frequented by ordinary people. A nice paradox here is found in the fact that this very urban document is mostly about places outside of the city walls. At the same time, the book overflows with information about people and their deeds. The human element probably represented the city as much, or more, as any built structure. This essay is supposed to unravel the multitude of features in The Pleasure Boats, and to uncover its topical structure.
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 2004
This little book is not what its title purports it to be. It is not in any sense a balanced presentation of everyday life in mankind's oldest literate civilization; instead it is a compilation of articles culled from various recent issues of L'histoire, a historical magazine published in France. All touch to a greater or lesser extent on that life. They are written for the most part by acknowledged masters of Assyriology and underpinned by decades of scholarly engagement with the enormous and intractable mass of cuneiform texts (the word used is 'dossier') that permit an intimate insight into all aspects of human activity that is unrivalled in the study of ancient civilizations. Georges Roux begins with two perplexing matters of prehistory, the questions of where the first settlers of Mesopotamia came from (Chapter 1: 'Did the Sumerians emerge from the sea?') and of what actually took place in the extraordinary mass graves ('death-pits') excavated by Sir Leonard Woolley (Chapter 2: 'The great enigma of the cemetery at Ur'). Both questions remain unanswered. Jean Bottéro takes over with two subjects of universal interest, food and love, on both of which he has written extensively over the course of a long and distinguished academic career (Chapter 3: 'The oldest cuisine in the world', Chapter 4: 'The oldest feast', Chapter 6: 'Love and sex in Babylon'). The second of these touches on an important feature of Mesopotamian mythology, that the gods often make decisions when drunk. But the point is not elaborated, though the theological implication is a serious one: that many of the faults in the world can be blamed on a less than sober divine assembly. Sandwiched between cooking, eating and loving is wine, another favourite topic, written up by André Finet (Chapter 5: 'An ancient vintage'). Beer was a staple in ancient Mesopotamia but sophisticated people developed a taste for wine and other imported liquor. The place and role of women are still fashionable topics. Jean Bottéro's study of feminist issues in a culture where women generally were owned by men (Chapter 7: 'Women's rights') appears in tandem with André Finet's chapter on some very up-market chattels, a royal harem of the early second millennium BC (Chapter 8: 'The women of the palace at Mari'). Appended to these is Georges Roux's investigation of an unusual Mesopotamian queen who, by virtue of wielding real power as her son's regent, became in Graeco-Roman antiquity the vehicle of a fascinating legend (Chapter 9: 'Semiramis: the builder of Babylon'). The rest of the book deals with intellectual topics. Ancient techniques for the treatment of disease and other physical and mental disorders, and the rationales that informed them, practical and theological, are analysed by Jean Bottéro (Chapter 10: 'Magic and medicine'). The same writer next gives an 230 REVIEWS Treasure comes from Takht-i Sangin, as opposed to the nearby site of Takht-i Kavad as suggested by nineteenth-century English and Russian sources (see now, on the provenance of the Oxus Treasure, M. Caygill and J. Cherry (eds), A.W. Franks: Nineteenth-Century Collecting and the British Museum, London, 1997, pp. 230-49). Then, although there are drawings of both the Eshmunazar sarcophagus and the Alexander sarcophagus, and references to them in the text (pp. 209, 490, 503, 608, 912, 952), he nowhere discusses the cemetery now in the suburbs of Sidon from which they come. All he says of the Eshmunazar sarcophagus (p. 952) is 'on the date and the circumstance of the allocation to Sidon, see Kelly 1987...'. Nor is there any mention of the impressive sanctuary of Eshmun on the outskirts of Sidon, which is one of the best examples of an Achaemenid stone building outside Iran. On the grounds that such a valuable book will surely be reprinted and updated from time to time, it may be useful (and the author of this review hopes he will be forgiven for doing so) to draw the attention of the author and publisher to a few areas where modifications might be considered. The references or footnotes are presented in 174 pages of 'Research notes' at the back of the volume which are gathered in sections following the order of the main text. They are not further linked to the text, which makes them difficult to use. It is also difficult to find out more about the illustrations. For example, the information that the Cypriot-Phoenician bowl illustrated in fig. 50c comes from Praeneste in Italy is buried in the notes on p. 983. The overall quality of the illustrations, which are all in the form of line-drawings, is regrettably poor. This criticism also extends to the maps. The translation on the whole is excellent, although there are a few slips-e.g. gold 'plate' for gold 'plaque' on p. 501, and Oxus 'Treasury' for Oxus 'Treasure' throughout (on pp. 215, 254, 501, 954, 1025). These are minor blemishes, however, and do little to detract from what is a magnificent achievement.